Under pressure: How do you handle workplace stress?
For every smiling, happy-go-lucky, super perky waitress out there, there’s someone punching a hole in the wall of a break room while yodeling. Or shot-putting a triple cheeseburger through the drive-thru window at a kid in a car seat. Or setting her “Hello, may I help you?” nametag on fire.
Stress adds up. It makes your blood curdle and blood pressure jump. And it turns your smile into a frown (By the way, did you know it takes more muscles to frown than to smile?)
So what do you do to alleviate stress? Do you practice yoga in your jammies while sipping some Earl Grey tea? Do you plug into your iPod and turn the volume on full blast? Or do you pay a neighborhood kid $5 to sucker punch you in the gut?
We want to hear how you alleviate stress. Click the “Add a comment” link below and send in your stories, suggestions and remedies.
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May 29th, 2008 08:30
Stress. The malevolent mistress that haunts us in any stage of our career. She preys on those who failed to anticipate the unanticipated. She toys with the overwhelmed. She tortures the unprepared. She consumes those who are caught on the wrong rail of life.
While there are plenty of ways to escape her twisted clutches that I would be glad to share, currently Lady Stress and I are staring down each other’s gun barrels. I know there’s only one shot in my revolver left, and she’s not letting on how many she has. We’ve been at this for a few months now, and the longer I try to hold out, the bigger her gun seems.
I’m not really sure how I got into this situation, but now it seems my work-related stress is calling all the shots, much to the displeasure of my wife. Somehow Lady Stress managed to escape from work and enter my home, and she refuses to leave. Lady Stress tells me when, and how much I sleep. Stress determines how much I eat, if I eat. She holds my cell phone up as a constant reminder that at a moments notice work would invade what time I have to myself.
Bless my wife, as she’s had to fight this intruder alone for sometime. She’s fed me all my favorite things — pizza, gyros, sushi, and other foods that Lady Stress wished to deny me. She’s smuggled me out to movie theaters to escape Lady Stress’s dastardly grasp, if only for a couple of hours. She’s even stolen the object of Lady Stress’s power, the cell phone, to allow me to play my favorite video games in relative peace.
In the end, however, the cell phone eventually rings, the movie eventually ends, the food is eventually gone, the game is eventually over, and I remain trapped in Stress’s cage once more.
However, Stress eventually made a mistake, as all good super-villains do. By trying to push me past rock bottom, she made me realize there was a limit to her power. If she has limits, she can be defeated. So now, slowly, I rise to the challenge. My superpowers have all but run out, but I am now empowered by what I’ve learned. I have the determination to defeat this monster before it can consume anymore of my being.
I apologize, as I cannot say how I defeat the evil lady; the two of us are still squaring off in the boxing match of my life. Perhaps the truth is that we never truly leave the ring, and only have short breaks between rounds. Perhaps the trick is to forget about the ring, and find something that is far more interesting than what could happen next round. In either case, we eventually have to put the gloves back on, and face what comes. I pray that we all have the courage to do so.
May 29th, 2008 13:29
I go to run with my two dogs after work and tell myself that work is all done. Then i let my mine drift to other things and the stress melts away.